Their first guest is creative director, author and political commentator, Dee Madigan.

Her book is called The Hard Sell: The tricks of political advertising.

"Negative ads work and the reason they work is because they hone in on the people who are disengaged," she says.

"Disengaged voters are far more likely to vote against a party than for them."

Then they are joined by Dr Stephen Mills, former speechwriter to Prime Minister Bob Hawke and political journalist, who now lectures at the Graduate School of Government at the University of Sydney.

When asked about the campaign directors that he interviewed for his latest book, The Professionals: Strategy, Money and the Rise of the Political Campaigner in Australia, he says, "They're intelligent, they're focused, they are loyal party servants and they are doing their job which is to win the election.

"I think the real reason Rudd lost from a campaign point-of-view, is that he had no discipline in his campaign strategy."